


opposite over adjacent

by everystarfall



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Prompt Fic, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-18
Updated: 2011-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-26 06:18:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everystarfall/pseuds/everystarfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for prompt #21 at <a href="http://yobrothatssick.livejournal.com">yobrothatssick</a>, the sick!Frank challenge: "Judge me if you will! I really want teenage!bedridden!Frank and older student!reluctant tutor!Gee."</p><p>so... what it says on the tin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	opposite over adjacent

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my best friend, L, for generous beta and constant cheer leading. Thanks mods of ~yobrothatssick for this challenge. Title is shorthand for the ratio for the tangent of an angle; tangent is from the Latin for “touching.”

Math sucked. Math sucked hard. Math sucked hard hairy monkey balls. The only thing that sucked worse than math was having to get a fucking tutor for it. The only thing that sucked worse than having to get a fucking tutor for fucking hairy-monkey-ball-sucking math was having to get a fucking tutor because you were fucking stuck at home fucking sick in fucking bed with fucking whooping cough and motherfucking pneumonia, _fuck_.

“ _Frank_.” Linda’s mouth was in a tight line as she glared at her son from the doorway to his room. “Language, _please_.” Frank coughed delicately into his sleeve. Someone shuffled in the doorway behind Frank’s mom, and Linda took a step into the room to allow the newcomer to enter. Frank narrowed his eyes - at the stranger, not because they were watering from his last coughing fit, not really - and pulled his blankets up imperiously. The stranger - well, intruder, since he did look familiar - shuffled some more until he ended up in Frank’s room, too, standing slightly in the corner and looking like he was surprised to find himself not in some dark shut-in room somewhere, probably sucking the blood of bats or something. He was dressed all in black - though his t-shirt had some logo on it - Frank could only make out part of it under the dude’s beat up leather jacket, and he didn’t want to look too closely, in case the dude or Frank’s mom might think he cared. Which he didn’t. The guy’s hair was black and kind of shiny, as if he either was using some fancy product, or hadn’t washed it in a while. Possibly both. Frank was wondering if his mother had finally decided to sell him to a band of ragtag orphan thieves like in _Oliver!_ when she finally cleared her throat and came over to fuss with his blankets.

“Frank, you remember Gerard Way?” Both boys looked at her blankly. “Mikey’s brother? You remember Mikey, you two had playgroup together when you were little.” Linda smiled encouragingly.

“Mom, I was like, three years old in playgroup,” Frank grumped, trying to look at his mother politely while not taking his eyes off the strange dude - strange _Gerard_ \- lurking next to his dirty socks.

“And Mikey was just a little older, right Gerard?” Frank was mesmerized by the little flip Gerard’s hair did when his head snapped up to look at Frank’s mother. “And Gerard is home for a while from college and Donna said he’d be happy to help you with your trigonometry.” Linda continued right on, not waiting for Gerard’s confirmation, and swept a pile of used Kleenex into the trashcan next to Frank’s bed.

“Mo- _om_ ,” Frank said, low, trying not to whine but hardly able to stop himself. “I don’t need a tutor, I told you, I’ll be fine.” He clutched his fingers in the duvet to keep himself from pulling on his mom’s sleeve or something equally needy and embarrassing. Out of the corner of his eye, Frank thought he saw a smirk on Gerard’s face.

“Frank, we talked about this.” Linda turned fully towards Frank, blocking Gerard from their conversation and speaking in a quiet voice. “You’ve been out too much already, and you don’t want to get behind this year, when you’re going to be looking at colleges and worrying about SATs. Your junior year’s important, Frank. A little guidance never hurt anyone.” Frank scowled as Linda ruffled his hair and turned back to Gerard.

“Alright, Gerard, well, here you are.” Linda pulled out the chair from Frank’s desk and set it facing his bed. “I’ll let you two get settled and all that. Don’t worry, dear,” she patted Gerard’s arm on her way out; he hadn’t moved from the corner. “He’s not contagious anymore.”

++

“I don’t need a tutor,” Frank said, staring at the wall across from his bed and folding his arms across his chest. Gerard had walked - apparently the shuffle was in a mom-zone only - over and sat in the chair, and he was regarding Frank with cool hazel eyes. He looked less out of place now, somehow. Or more out of place, but in a different way.

“I don’t need a job,” Gerard replied, after a beat.

“Then why are you here?”

There was a pause, and Frank turned in time to see the hazel eyes narrow. “I guess we’re both doing our moms favors here,” Gerard offered, cool and vague. Frank snorted.

“So, you’re in college? For what, math?”

“Art.”

“How are you going to fucking tutor me, then?”

“I did _graduate_ high school,” Gerard drawled, the smirk reappearing. Frank glared at him.

“It’s the middle of October. Why aren’t you at school?” He shot back, sitting forward a little in bed to try and look intimidating.

“Why aren’t _you_?”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Because I’m fucking sick, moron.”

“And I’m fucking tutoring you, punkass, so mind your own business.”

Frank glared harder, but Gerard seemed to have found his feet alarmingly fast, and was just watching him with a mix of amusement and annoyance. Frank wondered what happened to the awkward vampire creature Gerard had been when he first came in. He was about to pry - because nothing made Frank more curious than the phrase ‘mind your own business’ - but when he opened his mouth, of course, of _course_ , he started coughing. Again.

“Shit! Shit... dude...” Gerard was saying, getting up out of the chair so fast Frank was surprised it didn’t tip over. He waved a hand weakly, trying to imply that his wracking, wrenching, seizing cough was par for the course, but it seemed that Gerard wasn’t a quick enough study in Frank-body-language to pick up on that. He was standing next to Frank’s bed, holding a box of tissues, just staring, until Frank was gasping in great lungfuls of air, whooping and wheezing.

“Dude, shit,” Gerard repeated, sitting down in the chair slowly, as if he’d been the one who just hacked up his kidneys. “You look like you’re gonna puke, man.”

Frank shook his head, breathing heavily and reaching for a tissue to wipe his mouth. “Nah, man, that shit was last week. I’m over those symptoms now.” He offered Gerard a cheeky smile. Gerard inched the chair back.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Frank agreed.

*** ***

The thing of it was that trig wasn’t even that hard. Not yet, anyway, not for Frank. He’d been in an accelerated math course his previous year, so they’d covered the beginning material already - he’d dropped down a level at the beginning of this year when he’d first started getting sick. So, so far? He could do this shit himself, thank you very much. Which, he supposed, was a good thing, since Gerard turned out to be kind of a crappy math tutor. Sure, he _had_ taken the class, and passed, and graduated, but it didn’t mean he was very good at it. Most of the time, while Frank spread the heavy book out on the bed next to his legs, Gerard would pull his chair close and lean over it, dark hair falling into his eyes as he puzzled out what exactly Frank’s homework was supposed to be about. Frank amused himself by seeing how close he could get to poking Gerard’s shoulder without him noticing before he sat up, sweeping hair out of his eyes and sitting back, confident, with a “well, okay, see, it’s like...” and then proceeding to describe some concepts of mathematics with metaphors ranging from basic shapes to dragons and Star Wars references. It was a good thing, too, that Frank didn’t really need explanations, because not only were they hard to follow, but he found himself watching Gerard’s freaky long fingers waving around wildly in earnest emphasis, or slipping through Gerard’s shiny black hair when he worked through a rather complicated description of cotangents.

Even worse, from an educational viewpoint (and nothing else, Frank would admit only to himself) was when Gerard couldn’t come up with an explanation that satisfied him, and he resorted to drawing out concepts - not with mathematical diagrams, but as comic strips. With protagonist “secant” and his dark, villainous nemesis, “arccosine.” The comic strips had started early on, after Gerard had caught Frank hiding an old Batman in the pages of his textbook, trying to read surreptitiously with his knees pulled up while Gerard rambled on about graphs. Frank had been so absorbed - in the comic, not in Gerard’s mesmerizing gestures, not that time - that he hadn’t noticed when Gerard broke off and leaned forward, plucking the comic neatly from behind _Elements of Advanced Algebra and Trigonometry_.

“What the fuck, Frank,” Gerard had said, with a half-annoyed, half-hurt huff and a truly impressive bitchface. Frank was sputtering to think of something to say that wouldn’t make Gerard flounce out (because somehow he knew Gerard would be the type to flounce), when he was saved by a coughing fit. The trig book ended up on the floor, and Frank was bent over, up on his knees in bed by the time he was finished. Gerard had placed Batman at the foot of the bed for safekeeping and was rubbing Frank’s back, bitchface entirely replaced earnest, wide-eyed concern. “Frank?”

Frank nodded, leaning back and waving off Gerard’s hand on his back; Gerard immediately grabbed Frank’s knee with his free hand. Frank flailed momentarily as Gerard fell a little across him, until he realized that Gerard had climbed onto the bed with him while he’d been coughing, and in shrugging off his hand Frank had nearly toppled him onto the floor. “Sorry, sorry,” Frank muttered, scooting over a little to give Gerard room to right himself, and leaning back against the propped up pillows.

“No, no, you... are you okay, dude?” Gerard asked, standing uncertainly and pulling the chair back over so he could sit down again. His hair was sticking up at odd angles, as if he’d been running his hand through it and tugging. Frank put a hand on his stomach, which had squirmed.

“You’re still not used to my impressive coughing feats, are you?” he replied dryly, voice hoarse, and reached for the bottle of water next to his bed. Gerard looked down and shook his head, but Frank could make out the hint of a smile when he turned away.

“Comics, huh?” Gerard countered, picking up Batman again from down past Frank’s feet. Frank gave him a big-eyed look while blowing his nose, trying to appear hopeful and pathetic. He still wasn’t sure on the percent probability of Gerard flouncing out. Statistics was next year.

Gerard moved the comic to Frank’s bedside table and retrieved the trig book from the floor, reaching into the pocket of his jeans and coming out with a small-nibbed Sharpie. “I can do comics,” Gerard said quietly, eyes on the paper bag cover of Frank’s book, voice soft and defiant.

The trigonometry comic strips really, _really_ didn’t help Frank understand the concepts any better, but by the end of the afternoon his textbook cover was entirely filled with snarky little drawings. His mother left a fresh paper bag in his room the next day, ostensibly so he could recover the book; Frank used it as a trashcan instead.

*** ***

Frank blamed the pneumonia for how loopy he got the next few days - his sleep schedule was fucked, and there was absolutely no way he could do any school work at all, especially not trig. Especially not with Gerard’s explanations. He also blamed the pneumonia and accompanying fuzzy-headedness for how much time he spent trying to remember if Gerard had been wearing eyeliner the last time he’d been over. His memory wasn’t exactly the best, with an intermittent fever and all, and the lights weren’t always very good in his room. Maybe Gerard had just had dark circles under his eyes - after all, he did seem the type to stay up all night without realizing it, drawing or expounding on something or other. Frank wasn’t actually sure if Gerard was the type to wear eyeliner. Or why he wanted to know. Or what that would mean.

He spent so much time rolling it around in his head that he was starting to get annoyed with himself. Which was why it was even more annoying when Gerard showed up the next afternoon, shuffling into Frank’s room even with no mom-figure present, and wearing a pair of gigantic dark sunglasses.

“You look like shit,” Frank said, just to be bitchy, since he couldn’t actually tell how Gerard looked, with those sunglasses on. Gerard just shrugged and pulled his jacket off, tossing it blindly over the chair he usually sat in. Frank narrowed his eyes as Gerard sat on the edge of his bed, taking off the damn glasses but covering his eyes with his hand. “Wait, dude, are you sick?” Frank scrambled up onto his knees in bed and poked Gerard’s shoulder. “I didn’t get you sick, I’m not contagious! You can’t blame me, you better not have -” Frank broke off, realizing he was about to beg for Gerard not to have whooping cough, too. For fuck’s sake.

Gerard was absently waving a hand at him. “‘M’not sick. Stop shouting,” he mumbled, shifting back to sit against the wall at the foot of the bed. Like he was totally comfortable in Frank’s bed. On it. _On_ Frank’s bed. Frank took a breath and paused the DVD he’d had on.

“Are you _drunk_?” He demanded, irrationally angry.

There was another hand wave and head shake. “Hungover. No math today. Hurts.”

Frank rolled his eyes and picked fuzz off his duvet. “Hey, _I’m_ the one with pneumonia, dick,” he muttered under his breath, then leaned forward again, nudging Gerard’s knee with his knuckles. “Why’re you here then, huh?”

Gerard opened an eye and regarded Frank, in all his sloppy pyjama-ed glory, kneeling next to him. “Told you. Favor to mom.”

“No, I mean _today_ , asshole.”

Gerard just looked at him, gaze steady, if slightly red-eyed. Definitely no eyeliner today, but maybe those were smudges where it hadn’t been washed? Frank shook his head to focus, then groaned as his own vision swam for a minute. Gerard was still looking at him. “Ohhhh,” Frank said after a minute, smirking. “You got in _trouble_. This is _punishment_!” He couldn’t help sounding gleeful at the thought, though why, he didn’t know. After a minute of thinking it over, Frank was kind of disappointed that he was punishment for Gerard. Kind of really disappointed.

“Fuck you. What are you watching?” Gerard finally turned away from Frank and gestured vaguely at the tv across from the bed.

Frank huffed and sat back so he was against the wall next to Gerard instead of propped up on the pillows. “Night of the Living Dead,” he muttered, hitting ‘play’ on the remote and tossing it between them.

“Night of the Living Dead? Really? Fucking classic, dude!” Gerard said, eyes suddenly bright as he shifted out of his slouch. Reaching across Frank, he grabbed some of the pillows from the head of the bed and stuck one behind himself to lean on, handing the other to Frank. “I fucking love zombie movies. Wish I’d been alive when this first came out, you know? Like, no one even knew about zombies. This, like, created the modern zombie myth. They don’t even call them zombies, do they? Wait, maybe at the end? Shit, I haven’t seen this in years.” Gerard toed off his ratty Converse and pulled his feet up on the bed, settling in. Frank busied himself with arranging the pillow behind him, trying not to gawk at Gerard’s sudden transformation into marginally social human due to classic horror. “What?” Gerard was looking at him; Frank abruptly shut his mouth and shrugged, trying to be cool.

“Want some Saltines?” Yeah. Cool. But then again, he was sick and Gerard was hungover: it wasn’t a bad offer. Gerard gave him a sideways look and reached for a cracker.

++

Frank _had_ seen Night of the Living Dead recently. He’d seen all the movies he owned recently. He’d seen everything he actually wanted to see on his Netflix queue. So who could blame him if he sat back as far as he could so he could watch Gerard watch the movie, instead? No one. Really. Especially since there was no one else around. Ever. Well, obviously his mom. But she usually was running errands or fixing dinner if she was home from work when Gerard was over. Sometimes Frank had friends stop by; James came every few days to drop off more homework, but he never stayed long. No one ever stayed long. Not that Frank could blame them. He was sick. He was tired. He coughed in the middle of sentences (one time he threw up on Ray’s shoes, even) and was asleep a lot of the time. Sure, he showered regularly, it wasn’t like he stank or anything, but he did wear his pyjamas all the time, too, and it’s not like he could smoke up in his room while having pneumonia and whooping cough, either. It was difficult to be an entertaining host, was the thing.

Gerard, Frank thought, probably didn’t have that problem. Well, maybe initially. But he probably drew people comics of their lives while telling them stories about unicorns and … fucking... capybaras, while they watched him, beaming, mesmerized by his hands and crooked mouth and bright eyes. Or... maybe that was just Frank. Really, though, who _could_ blame him? Even when he’d figured out Gerard’s hair was more greasy than styled, it still had an absurd way of framing or hiding his face that made Frank want to put his hands in it anyway, to push it behind Gerard’s ears. And if Gerard ran his hands through it at all, it stuck wherever he pulled it, and stayed, sometimes for hours. He smirked a lot, at least at Frank, but he also had a genuinely happy smile, or so it seemed, anyway, as well as a wonky pleased sort of grin, which Gerard turned on Frank whenever he caught Frank pocketing his scraps of drawings or staying lucid and focused enough to follow one of his more enthusiastic ramblings on parabolae or gazelles. Whatever else it was, it was nice, and Frank let himself indulge in his watching and fantasizing about Gerard, since, if nothing else, the guy was _there_. And maybe it wasn’t so bad that Gerard was forced to be there, since at least it _got_ him there, with Frank, and Frank could watch him nibble on tasteless crackers while the light from the tv flickered over his face. It wasn’t like they were on a date, or anything; Frank was wearing pyjama pants with trains on them, and Gerard probably hadn’t showered in two days. So it was totally safe for Frank to imagine having a crush on the dude. Nothing was going to happen.

Right. Good.

++

Frank wriggled around against his pillow and sighed, finally turning back to the movie, in time to see Barbra get killed, which was always his favorite part. He was giggling about it before he realized Gerard was watching him. “What?” Frank asked, wary, wondering if he’d been too obvious in his watching of Gerard, or if Gerard was one of those people who didn’t find it satisfying when Barbra finally got killed off.

Of course, Gerard didn’t explain, just shook his head briefly and turned back to the screen. Frank cast about for a topic. “I can’t believe you’re fucking hungover, dude,” he finally said, shaking his head. Gerard grunted next to him and stretched.

“I can’t believe you have whooping cough. Who fucking gets whooping cough? Didn’t you get vaccinated?”

“Fuck you, it can wear off!”

Gerard was staring at him. “Are you for real?”

“What?”

Gerard’s lips curled into a lazy smile. “You’re, like, a wilting Victorian maiden, aren’t you?”

Frank opened his mouth to protest, then shut it, feeling his face flushing red. He tried to will a coughing fit, but just ended up fake-coughing into his shoulder, which made him sound probably even more like a delicate flower. “Fuck you, I’m not,” he countered weakly, turning back to glare at Gerard.

Gerard had that pleased little smile on his face again, but something about the darkness of the room or Frank’s medication made it seem softer, warmer, and Frank shook his head, confused, and turned back to the tv, crossing his arms over his chest. Gerard yawned and reached out to ruffle Frank’s short hair. “Okay,” he said softly, and skritched at Frank’s head once before removing his hand.

*** ***

One of the trade-offs of being stuck home sick in bed, for Frank, anyway, was that at least he had to sleep pretty much all the time. Usually he was pretty active - hyperactive, even - and being confined to his room (or the couch, when his mother was washing and changing the sheets) was the sort of situation that would more than likely drive Frank up the wall - literally. The coughing took a lot out of him, he supposed, and the pneumonia on top of that knocked him on his ass for a good several weeks. But as they were both winding down, Frank had more days during which it was painfully obvious to him that he was just sitting. In bed. All day. Every day.

He was still sick, of course; it wasn’t like he could go for a walk, and even cleaning up his room just tired him out without wearing him out, so he was stuck, restless, buzzing with potential energy, but nowhere near enough to _do_ anything about it. It made him twitchy. It made him horny. It made him really want to smoke.

When Frank knew that Gerard was coming by on one of those days, he tried to channel the restlessness into fidgeting. Or video games. Somehow it was far too easy to let his horniness get carried away when Gerard was around (he’d arranged it so he never had to get up - out of bed, that is - while Gerard was over. Just in case. His pyjama pants weren’t all that concealing, when it came down to it).

And then, of course, because the Universe apparently got its rocks off by teasing Frank, Gerard came over on one of Frank’s twitchy days, and he’d just smoked. He’d just smoked a lot. It was finally seasonably cold out and brisk and fresh and Frank could _smell_ him before he even came in the room.

“Oh god,” he let slip, before he realized what was happening.

“What?” Gerard asked, arrested halfway to his usual chair, unwinding a striped scarf from around his neck.

“Did you just... fuck, fuck I want a smoke. You just smoked, didn’t you?” Frank’s eyes might have fallen shut in pleasure.

“Uh... yeah... do you... should I go... wash my hands?” Gerard asked, draping his jacket with his scarf over the chair and heading out of the room before Frank could respond. Or open his eyes.

Cabin fever on top of actual fever was a legitimate excuse for grabbing Gerard’s scarf off the chair and crawling back into bed with it, pressed up against his nose, Frank reasoned. He hadn’t seen the scarf before, but it really had only just gotten cold out, so he figured Gerard might have just gotten it out for the season. It certainly smelled that way - just a hint of some sort of soap or shampoo, then the musky brisk scent of fall, and, sweet Jesus, a ridiculous amount of cigarette smoke. Frank buried his face in it and inhaled deeply.

“Are you cuddling my scarf?” Gerard asked from the doorway a few minutes later. It was all Frank could do not to whimper. He lowered the scarf to his lap, but didn’t hand it over.

“Sorry, it - it just smells good. I... fuck, I could really use a smoke. My skin is crawling.” Frank admitted, trying to downplay his psycho klepto creeper sniffing tendencies, and held out the scarf to Gerard. Gerard shrugged and came over to sit next to Frank on the bed, not taking the scarf, but instead reaching for Frank’s math book with one hand and running his fingernails along Frank’s forearm with the other. Frank exhaled loudly.

“I always forget to get smokes before I run out. Sometimes this helps,” Gerard offered in explanation, looking sideways at Frank but not quite meeting his eyes. He flipped through the trig book, but Frank could tell he wasn’t really looking for a particular page. Frank tried to be nonchalant about sniffing the scarf again.

“Are you even old enough to smoke?” Gerard asked after a minute, turning and frowning thoughtfully at Frank. Frank shoved him in the shoulder with a scarf-wrapped hand.

“Fuck you, like it stopped anyone. I’ll be eighteen on Saturday.”

“Wait, fucking really? On Halloween? That’s fucking awesome, dude!” Gerard abandoned the pretense of actually doing math and turned more fully towards Frank on the bed, beaming and still rubbing his arm.

“Right? I was gonna be Dracula this year, but...” Frank trailed off, gesturing to the state of his life.

“Vampire is always a valid choice,” Gerard intoned knowingly, and scrunched up his face with a grin. Frank rummaged in his bedside drawer to show Gerard the fangs he’d gotten, and they ended up in a rather heated discussion of various vampire legends and tropes, which could only be satisfied by watching Herzog’s Nosferatu. Frank, because he’d seen it already in the past six weeks, and Gerard’s arm scratching had done miracles for his twitchiness, finally drifted off to sleep.

++

He woke up to his mom calling up to him to ask about dinner; disoriented, Frank sat up and dislodged a sheaf of papers from his chest. At first they appeared to be a stack of his old homeworks, but then he realized that on the backs Gerard had drawn a mini-comic strip of Indestructible Immune System Man and his trusty sidekick: Vampire Frank. It was just a rough set of sketches, a simple little plot that involved Vampire Frank being kidnapped by Villainous Diseases, and rescued, of course, by courageous and dashing Immune System. Frank was giggling to himself - Immune System Man had dark hair that stuck up in all directions, and a little bit of a familiar spread-fingered wave.

Frank allowed himself a full on stupid grin and the admission that it had been a long time since he’d been _imagining_ any sort of crush, and put the papers under his pillow. Gerard’s scarf was still wound around his hand.

*** ***

“Fucking... shit, Frank!” was Gerard’s greeting the next week, when he walked in on one of Frank’s most impressive coughing fits of the past month. “I thought you were getting better,” Gerard continued, sitting down in the chair without taking off his jacket, as if he was expecting to be asked to leave. He almost looked like he was pouting.

The thing was, Frank _had_ been getting better. At least a little. And that had been awesome, because being sick for weeks and weeks and weeks was not Frank’s idea of a great life. But getting better also would mean going back to school - and not needing Gerard around to tutor him. Well, ‘tutor’ at this point was a generous term, more than it had ever been; most days they gave a cursory nod to Frank’s homework - which he’d usually done already, just to get it out of the way - and then sat around and talked about movies or books or their favorite foods or totally fucked up nightmares they’d had. Sometimes they’d watch movies, but Frank usually fell asleep during them, so he tried not to suggest it too often. It was almost like Gerard was his friend and just came over all the time to keep Frank company. Most of the time he imagined that was his life, actually. But they always referred to Gerard’s visits as ‘tutoring’ and ‘math’ and ‘trig’ and ‘homework help,’ so Frank didn’t allow himself to imagine that Gerard thought of it as anything else.

It was almost a relief when his cough came back. And Frank felt so guilty about feeling relieved that he knew he was just making himself even sicker, which made him feel more guilty, which made him more sick, which led to a hacking, sputtering, red-faced, bent double, gasping, shaking coughing fit, right as Gerard walked in the room.

“Dude, seriously, Frankie, are you okay?” Gerard had moved to the bed and was handing him a glass of water and a Kleenex. Frank fell forward a little to bury his face in the duvet a second, hiding his smile for Gerard’s soft ‘Frankie,’ before sitting up properly and accepting the cup of water.

“You really shouldn’t be so surprised by now, man,” Frank said, shaking his head at Gerard as if Gerard were the one with a delicate constitution.

“You just coughed yourself five feet across the bed, Frank. That’s fucking hardcore.”

Frank shrugged as if he were used to it. Well, used to it enough that it didn’t still make him lightheaded and exhausted. “What can I say, it gives me killer abs,” he retorted dryly, smirking a little and settling back on the pillows. He looked up as Gerard huffed a little laugh and raised a slightly skeptical eyebrow.

“Yeah?” Gerard asked, tone both sly and mocking, though not, Frank thought, in a cruel way. Frank narrowed his eyes, sitting up on his knees a little, to be taller.

“What, you don’t believe me, Way? Fuck you, I’ll prove it,” Frank was rambling, not sure if he was going for ‘defiant’ or ‘tongue-in-cheek.’ He was gathering the hems of his t-shirt and hoodie to wrestle them off when Gerard touched his knee.

“Frank...” It sounded like a warning, but Gerard’s eyes were huge and he was licking his lip. Frank saw rather than heard him hitch in a breath.

“What?” Frank asked, hands stilled on his clothes, knuckles curled and cold against his belly. Gerard dropped his eyes and Frank felt the brush of his fingers across his knee - no, just above, across his thigh - and Frank realized he was about to strip for this dude he’d been fucking lusting after since about twenty minutes after he’d first shuffled into Frank’s life. Motherfuck.

Feeling foolish, Frank slumped, dropping his hands to his lap and settling down. Gerard’s hand had still been on his knee, and in slouching, Frank had inadvertently scooted his legs forward. Gerard’s hand ended up halfway up his thigh. It was a beat before they both reacted - Gerard starting to snatch his hand away, and Frank moving to smooth his hands down his legs to squash the teasing, tickling feeling of Gerard’s fingers light against his pyjama pants. There was a little electric shock and Frank found himself trapping Gerard’s hand against his leg. He looked at their hands dumbly. There seemed to be a fever in the spot, right on Frank’s leg, and the heat was spreading all over, into his stomach, into in neck, between his legs.

Gerard was staring at him in what seemed to be surprise, then curiosity when he pulled experimentally at his hand and Frank pressed it harder down on his thigh. Gerard’s hand was warm, and his breathing was loud and measured, as if he were concentrating on it.

“Frank,” Gerard said again, at the same time Frank said, “Gee,” with a little curiosity of his own, and a little spark of smugness. Frank held his breath, wondering if he was being way too presumptuous about things, but started to let it out when he saw Gerard’s gaze wander down towards their hands. He looked interested and intense and - he licked his lips again - _desirous_. “Gee,” Frank said again, a question this time, and Gerard answered almost simultaneously with “Frankie,” less uncertain. Low. Warm. Breathy. Frank felt Gerard’s fingers rubbing firmly over the cotton of his pants.

Frank opened his mouth, trying to think of something to say aside from their names, when there was an abrupt knock on the door, and he released Gerard’s hand and flew back against the pillows as his mother entered his room without waiting for a reply. Gerard sat back in his chair so fast he had to grab it so it didn’t fall over. Frank curled up on himself in bed.

“Frank? How are you doing? I heard you coughing again, do you want some...” Linda ignored Gerard and trailed off her question, holding up some generic cough medicine that never did much for Frank’s symptoms except knock him completely out so he didn’t have any for twelve hours. Frank tried to sneakily look past her and catch Gerard’s eye, but he seemed to be rummaging determinedly through his coat pockets. Frank sighed.

“Yeah, mom, thanks,” he croaked out, and dutifully swallowed the medicine and allowed her to tuck him in and kiss his head. He closed his eyes as she left, barely registering that Gerard was still rummaging.

“I’ll just be... yeah, I’ll just, I’ll be right out, Mrs. Iero,” Gerard was saying, and Frank heard him get up from the chair as his mother puttered down the hall. He figured Gerard had been looking for a pen or something to leave Frank a note with. Frank kept his eyes closed. So it was a surprise when he didn’t hear the scratch of a Sharpie or the crinkle of paper, but instead felt the covers tucked in around his back, a hand smoothing down his hair, and a soft kiss to his temple. Frank fought so hard to keep his breathing even that he was asleep before he could process what had happened.

*** ***

The processing, though, when it happened, was all-consuming. Frank woke up just after sunrise the next day, groggy and starving. After an automatic inventory of his symptoms and energy level, and then a trip to the bathroom to piss and brush his teeth, Frank sat back in bed, one hand on his head, and groaned. Had he been hallucinating? Gerard had really seemed.... _interested_ after the ‘killer abs’ comment and resultant hand-holding, staring intensely and _purposefully_ at Frank, and, well, Frank had been about to take off his shirt for the guy. And, like, make him feel up Frank’s leg. In an equally intense and purposeful way. That had happened, right?

And then Frank’s mom had ruined the moment. Had they had a moment? Frank rubbed the side of his head where he’d felt Gerard kiss him lightly the day before. A kiss! Well. Sort of. Actually, a kiss like his mom would give him. A kiss like his mom _had_ given him. Not really the sort of kiss he wanted from Gerard. In fact, the whole ‘tucking him in’ bit Gerard had done before he left had felt very... parental. Or at least fraternal. Frank scowled. Did Gerard see him as a kid? Okay, so he was four years younger than Gerard, but that wasn’t much, really. Maybe Frank’s mom showing up had freaked Gerard out? Maybe he was having second thoughts?

Frank flopped down on his bed, trying to think rationally, but his speculations kept hijacking his reason. To top it off, it was a twitchy day, too, and he couldn’t get back to sleep, or calm down, or concentrate on anything. He snapped at his mom when she came in to fuss over him, then felt even more miserable and tried to make it up to her by cleaning his room and sorting his laundry. By the afternoon, Frank was twitchy _and_ miserable _and_ angry. He wasn’t a fucking kid! Not that stomping his foot stubbornly about it was helping his case any.

Frank’s mother cleared her throat from the doorway. “Frank, honey, I’m going to be out this evening. Are you sure you don’t want me to call Gerard and tell him not to come? You looked a little flushed - “ Frank grumbled at her and brushed off her hand as she went to feel his forehead.

“I’m fine, mom, it’s fine. I’m just restless.” He shrugged. “You know.” Linda gave him a half hug and rubbed his back.

“Alright. There’s soup you can heat up if you get hungry later, okay?” Frank nodded.

He spent the early afternoon cleaning his bathroom; he’d gone in to wash his face, and the sink had looked dirty, so he started with that. And once the sink was clean, everything else looked dirty, so he had to clean the rest of it too. Frank had barely actually gotten around to washing his face and climbing wearily back into bed when he heard his mom letting Gerard in and then heading out. He fussed with his covers, pushing them off, then remembering that he always tried to be in bed under the covers around Gerard _for a reason_ , and pulled them back up. Still too hot. Just the sheet, then. No, not enough protection. Frank was pulling the duvet back up and his t-shirt over his head as Gerard walked in the door.

“Uh... you okay, Frank?” He asked, shoving his hands abruptly into his pockets. Frank looked up at Gerard and then down at his lap, where his t-shirt was still tangled in his hands. He hadn’t realized he’d taken it off.

“Yeah...” he muttered, distracted. “Just... it’s... I’m... too warm.”

“You look kind of flushed, dude,” Gerard said, still in an abrupt worried tone, but he came further into the room and sat down on the bed by Frank’s knees, taking off his jacket. Frank closed his eyes. He could feel Gerard’s gaze traveling all over him, and huffed a laugh, realizing his not-actually-all-that-killer abs were on display. It came out as a cough.

“Frank?” Gerard asked, this time quiet, and Frank opened his eyes to see Gerard’s hand right before he laid it across Frank’s forehead. Frank pushed into it, like a cat, and hummed. Gerard started to say his name again, but was cut off as Frank started coughing, jerking forward and unable to balance since his hands were tied up in his half-discarded t-shirt.

“Whoa, whoa, hey, Frankie, easy, hey,” Gerard was saying in a soft voice, though Frank could hear the worry in it.

“I’m okay,” Frank replied after a minute, rubbing his head against... oh. He’d fallen forward into Gerard’s arms, and was rubbing his head against Gerard’s shoulder.

“Yeah?” Gerard sounded skeptical now, but amused, and his hands were smoothing up and down Frank’s back. “You’re sweating a ton, dude, do you want to change?”

Frank shook his head against Gerard’s arm. “It’s okay, it’s from before. I was cleaning,” Frank explained, but started working his hands out of his tangled up t-shirt. “But yeah, maybe I should change.” He sat back, tossing the shirt on the floor, and started wriggling out of his pyjama pants. It only took him a second to realize that both the duvet and the sheet had been pushed down when he’d fallen on Gerard, and that he was hard. But in that second he’d already gotten his pants down entirely past his boxers.

“Oh,” said Gerard, in a slightly squeaky voice. Frank was still basically sitting in his arms, and there was his dick, nearly poking out of his boxers, right by Gerard’s wrist.

“Um,” Frank began stupidly, and Gerard was withdrawing his hands, pulling them back along Frank’s sides. He shivered at the loss of contact and his dick twitched. _Oh what the hell_ , Frank thought, because if there was one thing no one could accuse Frank Iero of, it was not doing things thoroughly. Even if those things included _making a giant ass out of himself_. He bit his lip and looked up at Gerard, intending to try for some cheeky innuendo, until he saw the look in Gerard’s eyes. A hungry, predatory look. And it wasn’t focused on Frank’s face. Not even on his not-so-killer abs. “Please?” Frank asked instead, in a small mischievous voice.

Gerard jerked his head up, as if he hadn’t realized he’d been staring. His hands flexed seemingly of their own accord and he let his head drop, in a manner that suggested to Frank he was gathering up the nerve to leave. Frank grabbed the hem of Gerard’s t-shirt in one hand and put the other hand in Gerard’s hair, sweeping it out of his face and over his ear. “Please?” he repeated, not in a small mischievous voice this time. Gerard looked at him, hazel eyes dark and hooded, and for a second Frank felt like maybe he had misjudged this entire thing. But then Gerard was moving, sliding his left hand around Frank’s waist and pulling him closer, using his right hand to pull Frank’s dick out of his boxers and start stroking. Frank shifted his own grip to Gerard’s shoulders, clinging to him and pushing his forehead against Gerard’s chest. Gerard was jerking him off fast and tight; he was holding Frank practically in his lap, the hand gripping Frank’s waist nearly as frantic as the hand pulling on his dick.

Frank felt flushed all over and radiating with heat; his blood was roaring in his ears so he could only just make out bits of Gerard’s whispered litany into his hair: “Frankie” and “so hot, Frankie” and “so good” and “want you” and “come on” and “come _on_ , Frankie.” It wasn’t long then, with Gerard’s warm hand speeding up on Frank’s overheated dick, his breath fluttering the mussed up hair by Frank’s ear, until Frank seized up against Gerard and came hard all over his fingers.

“Frankie, Frankie,” Gerard was repeating, petting his hair as Frank shuddered and panted into Gerard’s t-shirt. Frank sat up slowly, fumbling for the Kleenex box before he even risked looking down at his lap to see Gerard’s messy hand still loosely holding his dick. Gerard skritched Frank’s hair with his clean hand and hummed as they wiped themselves up; Frank was working up the courage to reach for Gerard’s belt when the front door slammed and Frank’s mother was calling out a greeting that she was home early.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Frank hissed, looking up to see Gerard’s wide, shocked eyes, and then pushing his hands away so he could get out of bed and actually change; Frank could feel Gerard’s gaze on him as he shucked his boxers and hopped into a fresh pair, grabbing a t-shirt out of the drawer and pulling it over his head as he dove back into bed. Gerard busied himself with putting his jacket back on; the deer-in-the-headlights look hadn’t faded at all by the time Linda knocked on the door. Frank just had time to sweep his dirty boxers under the bed and the used Kleenex into the trash.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, boys, I just really didn’t like how feverish Frank was when I left, I think he needs some rest today, Gerard,” Linda announced, her hand on the door knob. Gerard nodded meekly and shuffled out, throwing Frank a look from the doorway that Frank couldn’t interpret. He sighed, deflated. His mom came in and got him a glass of water and some Ibuprofen and pressed her palm against his cheek and neck. “You really need to rest, Frank, I don’t want you having a relapse, or whatever this is.” She frowned a little and rubbed his shoulder as he nodded. Satisfied, she shut off the light and left, closing the door behind her.

Frank rolled over and groaned into his pillow.

*** ***

Frank slept hard for most of that evening and then straight through till the next morning, and he woke up clear headed and refreshed. He felt well enough to even shower, do a load of his own laundry, and vacuum his room. His mom seemed to notice him recovering and stopped in periodically for spontaneous hugs. Of course, he wasn’t _all_ better, he still had to take a nap right after lunch, but this time it was because he was simply tired, not worn out or exhausted or done in, like usual.

For once Frank was glad he had homework to do, however, since once he woke up from his nap he needed something to distract him from thinking about Gerard’s visit later in the afternoon. Everything had seemed okay (really, _really_ okay) right before Frank’s mom had interrupted - again - but Frank had no idea what the look Gerard had given him when he left meant, or if he was having second thoughts this time, or what. Frank took a couple deep breaths, trying to be zen. He was enjoying being not very sick, and he didn’t want to worry himself into another fever. Besides, being not very sick might mean more hand jobs from Gerard. Or hand jobs for Gerard! Frank grinned to himself, then worried about Gerard maybe having second thoughts, then took another deep breath, then flopped back on the bed. At this rate he was just going to hyperventilate from his attempts to stay calm. He put Star Wars in the DVD player and flipped it on, setting aside his homework so he could just zone out while Luke was being all emo about his life.

++

Frank was dozing slightly, the menu looping on the DVD, when Gerard shuffled into his room and shut the door quietly behind him. Frank turned off the tv and sat up as Gerard came to stand by the end of his bed. He looked a little like the awkward shut-in who’d first stepped into his room weeks ago.

“Hey, Frank, I... how are you?” Gerard asked quietly, giving a little half wave and then shoving his hands in his pockets.

Frank took a sharp breath and grinned at him, big, bright, easy. Gerard relaxed his shoulders a bit and dropped his head. “I’m really good, Gee,” Frank said in a low voice, staring at him. Gerard nodded, not looking up, and Frank rolled his eyes. Throwing back the covers, Frank got out of bed and went to stand right in front of Gerard. “Hey,” he said, taking Gerard’s hands out of his pockets and holding them. “I’m really good. How are _you_?”

Gerard looked at his hands in Frank’s, then up at Frank’s face, startled. “I’m... you’re really fucking short, Frank,” he said instead of answering. Frank looked down at himself and frowned.

“You’ve seen me before. You know I’m short. I was out of bed yesterday!” He groused, tugging at Gerard’s hands. Gerard grinned and ducked his head again.

“I was... I wasn’t... I was looking... I didn’t _notice_ , okay?” He rolled his eyes as Frank gawped at him.

“You were checking me out!” he squealed with mock outrage and not at all repressed delight.

“You were naked!” Gerard squeaked back, but he was laughing.

“I... you...” Frank spluttered and then gave up, wrapping his arms and legs around Gerard instead and burying his face in Gerard’s neck. Laughing still, Gerard staggered back and twisted until they fell on the bed, Frank on top of him.

“Hey Frankie,” Gerard said softly once Frank had propped himself up and they could see each other. Gerard put his hand against Frank’s jaw and stroked his cheek with his thumb.

“Hey-” Frank croaked in response, but didn’t get past that as Gerard leaned up and kissed him. It was soft at first, like the swipe of Gerard’s thumb over his cheek, but then Frank wriggled over him and Gerard got bolder, aggressive, and Frank had to break away after a few minutes, panting for breath. Pneumonia hadn’t been helpful to his lung capacity.

“You know,” Gerard began casually, lips slightly swollen and hair sticking up every which way, “I wasn’t getting paid for the tutoring.” His hands were moving firmly over Frank’s sides.

Frank grinned and raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? That’s probably good, because you didn’t help all that much.” He was giggling until he saw Gerard’s hurt face. The hands on Frank’s sides stopped moving. Frank panicked and let his weight fall on Gerard, pinning him to the bed, and he shoved his hands into Gerard’s hair. “Just with math!” he said in a rush, kissing Gerard’s face lightly between the words. “Just with the math! I think,” Frank grinned mischievously, “I think I might owe you for some other services though.”

Gerard grinned back and raised his eyebrows, then rolled them over on the bed so Frank was under him. “Yeah? Sure math can’t help you with any of that?”

Frank chewed on his lip, confused, his gaze drifting down between them to see the bulge in Gerard’s jeans. “Math...?” he asked weakly, then licked his lips. Gerard’s eyebrows darted up again and he looked pointedly at Frank’s mouth. Frank blinked, then gasped a little “oh!” of revelation and giggled. He pushed Gerard until they rolled back over, then began wriggling down until he could get at the fastenings of Gerard’s jeans. “Yes,” he was saying. “Yes, math will help - ” He unbuckled Gerard’s belt and pulled it through the loops. “I’ll show you how well I know math - ” Frank pushed Gerard’s t-shirt up, practically rambling to himself. “I’ll show you how useful math is - ” Gerard arched and sighed as Frank unbuttoned his jeans. “Math - ” Frank leaned down over Gerard’s crotch. “Math _sucks_.”

*** *** ***

 _fin_


End file.
